


Tick Tock Toe

by Autogyrophile_7



Category: Persona 5, Persona Series
Genre: AU, Criminal Justice, Fame, Fix-It, Gaming, Gen, I travel primarily in an autogyro, Slice of Life, Spoilers, Strategy & Tactics, civilization
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-11
Updated: 2020-07-17
Packaged: 2021-03-04 19:34:15
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,465
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25141714
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Autogyrophile_7/pseuds/Autogyrophile_7
Summary: To leave your mark, one mustn't act rashly; rash decisions are more easily taken note of, and they leave you vulnerable.Luck befalls the methodical, while misfortune befalls the rash.In other words......git gud.





	1. Strateegery and Prelude to High Percentages

"If I had to explain myself, I'd say it's simply personal principle that I repay my debts."

Akechi's words from the night before rang once again within Akira's mind, as he watched the others begin to dig into their Christmas potluck. He wasn't very hungry, so he hadn't planned on eating much, but seeing all of his friënds laughing and enjoying themselves was far more satisfying than anything he could have eaten. Seeing all of them together was somehow...  
...wait...

...all of them?  
No. As much as he hated to admit it, he had a sort of begrudging respect for Akechi; not only had Akira enjoyed having Akechi in the Phantom Thieves dynamic, but the guy had just saved him from yet another round of the Japanese criminal justice system. In all honesty, Akira wasn't even sure if he could survive another trip through the ringer. Crow wasn't the only Phantom Thief that was missing from this picture, though; Yaldabaoth's defeat had come with a heavy price. Akira couldn't help but sadden at the thought, and as the mood changed to match Akira's (as it so often did), it fell to Futaba to say what was on all of their minds:

"If only Mona could be here with us."

At that exact moment, Sojiro walked balk into Leblanc. Everyone immediately turned toward him, almost as if they expected to find their dear, departed friënd in his arms.  
No such luck.  
What he _did_ have was bucket of offbrand fried chicken, making up for Ryuji's uncharacteristically noncarnivorous contribution. Had he been asked, though, Akira might've admitted that he preferred the previous state of affairs, if only for its comedic value. The Thieves were an off-kilter bunch, and that's what Akira liked best about them. They weren't perfect, nor even were they necessarily very good at working together. They had been brought together by circumstance and shared hardship, and they accepted each other for who they were, warts and all. Haru could be a discount disney princess, while Ryuji would continue his career as a walking punchline, and both of them could still be friënds with the most stereotypical student council president this side of Hawaii. Come what may, they'd stick together and enjoy life to the fullest whenever they could.

Summoning his courage, Akira stood up and said "C'mon, guys. I think Morgana'd want us to just shut up and enjoy this while we can."

"Nah, he'd prolly just keep complaining about how there's no tuna," Ryuji replied with a grin. "The big guy's right, though! What's the use of stressing over stuff when we could be eatin' Boss's fried chicken whatever thingy?"

"Agreed," nodded Yusuke sagely, "let us gorge ourselves on the 'fried chicken whatever thingy' to our hearts' content!"

Makoto sighed audibly. "I swear, you two are quite the pair, aren't you?"

The evening proceeded much as would be expected.

* * *

As they all gradually filtered out of the cafë, Futaba decided to approach Akira. This was no big deal, of course; Akira was one of the few people she was 100% comfortable to be around with, but still... a thought just nagged at the back of her mind and wouldn't let go. That thought was making her nervous, but she didn't really understand why. Her heart had been changed, right? Why was she still so uncomfortable talking about serious things? At this point, Akira was practically her brother, so there shouldn't be anything she can't tell him about, right? Even if it's about...  
...death...  
...again...

No, she couldn't be doïng this now! She was stronger! Was all that leveling up for nothing? Was the change of heart for nothing? No, she wouldn't let it end this way, not if she had anything to say about it! _"PULL. YOURSELF. TOGETHER!"_ she screamed internally. She would do this. She would _do_ this. She just needed to man up, and...or actually would it be...? No, that'd be weird to say... yeah, she needed to man up and walk over there and—

It is at this point that Futaba reälized that she had somehow come to a stop in the middle of Leblanc and most likely had a very stupid expression on her face. She immediately looked away in embarrassment, before asking "Hey, could you please um..."  
"..."

She couldn't finish the sentence. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn't do it; too great was the shame of her perceived failure and the embarrassment of walking only halfway to someone. Instead, she defaulted to:  
"...come play RTS with me tomorrow?"  
Thinking better of her statement, she corrected, "Or wait, actually... could I just bring everything here? I have it all installed on my old laptop, and your room is bigger than mine."

D'oh! Stupid stupid stupid! Why couldn't she just tell him? Why did it have to be so hard? Then again, maybë all she needed was a good night's sleep; she would surely feel more refreshed in the morning, especially if she got to kick Akira's butt in Starcraft ..or maybë a Pikmin emulator? Eh, decide later. Ooh, I think he said yes!

"Thank you, Brain Futaba!" she said out loud, paying no heed to the two baristas' bewildered reäctions. She turned around and cheerfully walked home.

* * *

Akira awoke slowly and groggily. This was to be expected. If Akira was beïng honest with himself, Morgana had functioned as his only real alarm clock. The endless insistence on goïng to bed early, combined with Morgana's own uncanny punctuality, had led to restful nights and early mornings. Now, Akira found himself unsure as to whether or not he'd actually gotten any rest. If that wasn't bad enough, the sun looked to already be high in the sky, meaning that the shop should've already opened for business. Boss would have his head for this.

Throwing on some casual attire, Akira hurried down the stairs, quickly finding himself face-to-face with...  
Futaba. Huh, not Sojiro?  
Oh right, hadn't she asked him to play some weird video game thing today? but...

"How did you get in?"

"Through the front door, where else? Boss let me in when he was opening up."  
Seeing Akira's confused expression, Futaba asked "What's with that face? Did I say something weird?"

"Boss gave me the keys awhile ago."

"And you think he doesn't have any spares and can't order more from the locksmith?"

Okay, that was fair. Why didn't Akira think of that? Was he really _that_ off of his game? Perhaps he hadn't reälized how much he missed his furry friënd; it had been a little more than a day prior that Morgana had made his sacrifice, and who knew how long it takes for death to sink in. Akira opted to silently shift to an embarrassed expression, although that may also have been how he really felt in that moment. He could never tell with such things.

"Man, you really didn't know that? But you know everything! Ah, well, doesn't matter. I'm goïng upstairs to set everything up. You can make brunch for us in the meantime!"

Just like that, Akira had survived yet another Futaba whirlwind. He'd better tell Morgana to add— Oh...right. Well, he _was_ hungry, so perhaps making brunch wasn't so bad an ideä. That might take his mind off of things.

* * *

"Took you long enough. Here, come see the game! It'll blow your socks off."

Akira wondered how many people even still used that phrase. Wasn't it kinda outdated? In any case, he decided to comply with Futaba's request, putting her meal next to her and sitting down with his own meal to her left. Futaba had somehow connected the TV to one of her laptops, so that is was acting as a sort of second screen for the computer. This was to say nothing of the jumble of cables connected to said computer, or the fact that she was handing him a game console controller that wasn't even connected to anything. Akira could roll with it, though.

"So, this game series is called Civilization," Futaba explained between mouthfulls. "You take control of a specific culture, and you guide them through time, ordering research to be done, building roads, fortifying your military, soön and soforth; if you get the highest score at the end, you win. This particular version is the latest release, and I have all the DLC, so there's more options for who you can play as. I won't deny that I have the advantage here since this is one of the games I like the best, but I have a feeling you'll be pretty good at this one."

To Akira, this sounded fairly intriguing. Making a game out of _the concept of sociëty_ was certainly something he wouldn't have thought of. Not only that, but it directly paralleled their recent experiënces exploring the depths of Mementos. Wait, wouldn't that mean that they, as the people "guiding" sociëty, were effectively playing as Yaldabaoth? The thought was unsettling.

Futaba continued on, seemingly unperturbed. "Since you've never played before, I'll give you first pick of who you want to play as. You choose by clicking this thing here. Great! So, now... who do you want to be?"

After some deliberation, Akira made his selection.

"Huh, really? That's not what I expected you'd choose. Now that I think about it, though, it makes sense you'd choose them; of course Wildcard-Boy would choose the most flexible civ. Alright, let's go!"

As Akira started picking up the game's strategy, Futaba started planning how she would broach the subject of Morgana. Playing videogames was just as fun as always, but even now, she couldn't shake the feeling of overwhelming dread... no, dread wasn't the right word. Depression? Aliënation? Grief?  
Grief.  
And not the Minecraft kind either. Wait, why would she even think about that? Futaba just lost a friënd, one who had helped her overcome her crippling psychological hangups. This was not some guy blowing up a blocky house; this was a 100% real death of a 100% real friënd! Was she so disconnected that she couldn't even think about real life without comparing it to videogames? She should just focus on the game and think about it later. No, that was exactly the sort of thing that made her compare Morgana's death to Minecraft! _GET. YOUR. HEAD. IN. THE. GAME. No wait, no, not a game, life doesn't play by videogame rules! No, not play, like it doesn't **function** by them. It's not predictable, like RNG. No wait—_.

Seeing Futaba's suddenly sour mood, that she had stopped playing, and that she had curled her legs up close to herself, Akira decided to give a standard "What's wrong?"

"Sorry, just thinking... about..."

"Morgana?"

"What? But... how did you know?"

"Everyone else is thinking about it too."

"Even you?" asked Futaba, incredulously.

Akira's only reply was a delayed, pained nod. Futaba, unable to hold her tears back any longer, buried her face in Akira's chest, clinging on for dear life. Akira wished he could say more for his adopted sister, but he had trouble enough in normal conversations. As much as he hated to admit it, he was deeply jealous of Futaba; even only having opened up to people for less than a year, human interaction was already second nature for her. Akira, meanwhile, who'd lived with other people his whole life, still couldn't even hold a conversation, or understand his own emotions. Even with all the acquaintances and friëndships he'd made in the past year, he'd chock at least 50% of them up to beïng in the right place at the right time, and the other 50% to people just liking to hear themselves talk.

After she'd finished crying, Futaba blurted out "I'm horrible, aren't I?"  
At Akira's confused expression, she continued. "I mean, I asked to spend time with you, but I couldn't even tell you what I wanted to talk to you about. I've been trying to psych myself up for it, but all I could even think about was videogames. How can I be a good friënd if I can't even bring myself to think about him?"

"It's hard for me too."

"If you say so. I feel like I've missed out on a big opportunity or something, though. You two were inseparable, but it seems like all I ever did with him was argue. What would it have been like if we'd been on better terms with each other?"

With a small smile, Akira replied, "I'm glad he knew the real you."

Futaba couldn't help but be touched. "Saccharine as always, brother mine. Still, thanks, I needed that. It's like before: I shouldn't blame myself for everything, right?"

Akira nodded.

"Well, I'm still not doïng so hot," admitted Futaba, "but let's keep on playing. It's pretty fun, right?"

Akira nodded once more, before taking his turn. He'd already built up his navy, so maybë...? Hmmm...

Once Akira had finished, Futaba loudly announced her battlecry. "You're done for!"  
Within 2 turns, Akira had been completely decimated.

"What happened?" he asked, incredulously.

"You overplayed your hand. I won't say that it was decided from turn 1 or anything, but it was obvious fairly early on what you were trying to do. Since I knew what your objective was, it was child's play to formulate a counter-strategy. I, on the other hand, played my cards close to my chest. While you expanded and overextended, I was consolidating power."

Akira quipped, "So it's the opposite of real life."

"Huh? What do you mean?"

After deliberating for a bit, Akira decided to speak his mind for once. "In life, you have to overplay your hand. If you don't, no-one will know what you're doïng, and if they don't know what you're doïng, they won't be able to help you. You overplayed your hand just now by freezing up in the middle of playing a game, and that way I could help you." Akira was embarrassed by how awkwardly it came out, but he felt it needed to be said. Futaba and his other friënds were way too cagey about how they felt. Why couldn't they just be straightforward about it? Why were every last one of them so perpetually evasive?

"Oh, so, maybë I couldn't clear the checkpoint because I was playing too evasively instead of forming alliances? Yeah, I can dig it. But if you rush into problems face-first with no backup plans or reïnforcements, that's just asking for disaster! You've gotta make bold moves sometimes, sure, but you've gotta make small moves too, and you need to have contingency plans."

"Maybë it's a balance," Akira ventured.

"Maybë."

They sat in silence for some time afterward.

* * *

"Thanks Akira. This really helped."

"Anytime," was Akira's stoïc reply.

"I'm so glad you two get along together," chimed in Sojiro. "After all, it's less work for me."

As Futaba swung the door open, the two knew for certain that they would pull through this. What are siblings-slash-friënds for, if not for dealing with the loss of their supernatural cat mentor? In fact, so strong was their resolve, so oblivious was Futaba, and so emotionally off-balance was Akira, that neither of them noticed the small black figure that scurried through the open door.  
When Akira awoke to a familiar feline face, he couldn't open the messaging app fast enough.

* * *

Elsewhere, a Pleasant Boi coughed.


	2. 99.4 and Prelude to Endings

Akechi stared.  
What else could he do?

He found himself tied to a chair in an interrogation room. This was nothing new of course; after all, not a soul had so much as spoken to him in... how long? It was impossible to tell, but Goro put his bet on somewhere around a day. He'd stared at the wall for hours, fallen asleep, and woken up, all without any interaction with another human being. It was understandable; he'd confessed on Christmas Eve, so the station was likely taking a break to celebrate the holiday. He didn't mind missing it, as he was never much one for festivals, but he was rather annoyed that he'd been tied up. He confessed of his own free will, hadn't he? Why would he leave? Even if he did want to leave, why not just lock the door to the interrogation room? Why tie him up so uncomfortably like this? Surely, this was against police procedure. Ultimately, though, Goro decided it'd be best not to ruminate on such things; he had a quite the tall tale to confess to, and it was going to take a lot of effort to convince his former colleagues of its veracity. It would be quite the challenge, but Goro felt that he was nevertheless up to the task.

Just then, the door slammed open. "Well, look what we've got here. Man, two teenagers, for the same crime, in the same year?" The man shook his head in mild disbelief. "Oh, but the other one was innocent, wasn't he?" he asked, growing angriër. You just set him up!" he yelled, slamming the table in an attempt to intimidate Akechi.

Akechi, however, remained unfazed. "Yes. I assure you that this is not a prank or a stunt; I am the culprit behind the mental shutdowns." Donning his trademark pleasant smile, he offered "I assume you've already read through my confession? That should save us both some time."

"I wish that I could agree."

Akechi was suddenly on edge. "I'm sorry?"

The officer grunted. "Don't get me wrong, you make a compelling case. But come on!" The officer walked around the table to yell in his ear. "Cognitive worlds? Using fake weapons to kill monsters? Special powers?" The officer kicked the chair onto its side, the whole weight of it landing painfully on Goro's left arm. "Don't expect me to believe that nonsense!"

This was most definitely not following procedure. Akechi reflected on his attempted betrayal of the Phantom Thieves. Perhaps this treatment was a fitting punishment for making Akira go through the same. "I assure you, officer, it's all true. I can corroborate my story if need be. If you'll refer to the citations portion of the confession, then I—"

"Don't bullshit me!" yelled the officer, kicking the chair once again. He crouched down, putting his mouth almost to Goro's ear and lowering his tone to a menacing hum. "You're protecting someone, aren't you?" Standing back up, he shouted "It's that Phantom Thief kid isn't it?"

"Surely you reälize that I was the one who brought him in. I intended to use him as a scapegoat for my crimes. The only reason he was ever detained in the first place is because I made it happen! So tell me, officer: what exactly am I trying to protect him from?"

After sitting the chair back upright, the officer barked "Alright, out with it! I know you were working together!"

For once speechless, all Akechi could muster was a simple, dumb "Huh?"

"I know my men, and my men do _not_ make mistakes. If they arrested that kid, he was up to something."

"Not only is that an incredibly faulty line of reasoning, but if you'll recall, I was the one who ordered them them to—"

" _You're gonna pay for wasting my time!_ " growled the officer, punching Akechi hard on the right side of his face. "You hear me? My men do not make mistakes. They do not arrest innocent people. If they were arrested, they were up to something."

"But what if they're led by a crooked cop? Say, for example, a self-admitted serial killer with shady connections...?"

There was a short pause. "...Clearly, there is no reasoning with you. I had hoped you would be more coöperative."

"Likewise. I've already confessed to everything, and the fact you can't accept it is telling."

"I'll send someone else tomorrow. Maybë then you'll feel like actually coöperating with us. For your sake, I pray that you do."

The gruff officer exited through the door, closing it and once more plunging Goro into near-total darkness. It felt...comforting. This was a world in which you could commit the most heinous crimes imaginable and never get caught, one in which you could simply be minding your own business and suddenly find yourself unlawfully imprisoned. The police, the government, the mafia, schools, banks, hospitals, the media, the economy... they are all corrupt beyond repair. While some grew up in loving homes, Goro never had a family to call his own. While some inherited vast sums from their parents, Shido had given Goro jack squat. There were so few things he could find comfort in in this unforgivable, unfixable world; at least for now, he would have the dark.

* * *

Elsewhere, three nerds, two gardeners, two athletes, and a model walk into a cafë. A cat says the punchline to a bad joke.

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first ever fanfic, so feel free to leave constructive criticism. Chapters will diverge from canon by larger and larger margins as time goes on.  
> [Diæresës](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diaeresis_\(diacritic\))


End file.
